No.7 seed Aliaksandra Sasnovich moved into her second final of the season at Tennis in the Land presented by Motorola Edge on Friday, maintaining her undefeated record against No.8 seed Alizé Cornet with a 6-7(5), 7-5, 6-3 semifinal victory.
In a match between players right next to each other in this week's rankings, World No.36 Sasnovich came back from a set and a break down to overcome World No.37 Cornet in a grueling 2 hours and 51 minutes. Sasnovich is now 3-0 against Cornet.
Sasnovich is now a win away from her first WTA singles title following three runner-up showings at 2015 Seoul, 2018 Brisbane and this year's Melbourne Summer Set 2.
Cornet served for the match at 5-4 in the second set, but Sasnovich quickly broke the Frenchwoman to pull back on serve without facing a match point. Sasnovich claimed all the momentum from there, picking up the final three games of the second set before taking the third set as well.
Overall, Cornet was slightly more effective behind her first serve, but second-service points made the difference, as Sasnovich won 59 percent of points behind her second delivery while Cornet claimed only 34 percent of hers.
In the final, Sasnovich will face surging Liudmila Samsonova, who eased past Bernarda Pera 6-1, 6-2 in the second semifinal of the day. Samsonova needed a mere 53 minutes to knock out Pera, the last remaining American standing in Cleveland.
Big-hitting Samsonova fired a stunning 30 winners to just six unforced errors as she won her ninth match in a row. In her previous event, Samsonova opened August by winning her second career title at the Citi Open in Washington, D.C.
Pera had also been on a winning streak at tour-level, having claimed her first two singles titles in her two most recent Hologic WTA Tour events, on the clay courts of Budapest and Hamburg.
However, Samsonova was in overwhelming form on Friday, never even allowing Pera to hold a single break point in the match as she leveled their head-to-head at one victory apiece. Samsonova has now reached this week's final without the loss of a set.
Samsonova and Sasnovich will be meeting for the first time in Saturday's final.
